The Dark Side of the Moon
by altairattorney
Summary: There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact it's all dark. — A collection of Portal one-shots, inspired by Pink Floyd's concept album.
1. Speak to Me

**The Dark Side of the Moon  
**_A Portal one-shot collection_

I.  
Speak to Me

_I've always been mad, I know I've been mad, like the most of us… very hard to explain why you're mad, even if you're not mad._

All over the concrete wasteland, they tuned on one cadence.

It was the beating of their hearts, and the pulse of their fear — it tied the same string of destiny, trapping their feet and hands. It was a sound belonging to memories of a life that would no longer be,

the cascade of their laughter,

the daily tinkling of their coins,

the words whispered by a sanity that would soon be lost.

There was a world painted beyond Aperture, and it was slowly losing its pace to the loneliness. Geometry took over the memories, glimpses of faces and warmth, to repeat itself in its minds — it drew endless rows of the same image, of the same chambers, buttons and cubes.

They tested, no longer aware of touch and smell. They tried again, and fell on the floors like broken glass. Running on was their only option — until they'd collapse under the weight of their bodies, and the white light would overflow with colours.

She did not care about them. She recorded, studied, undid the fabric of Science with each figure.

It was a game of smoke and mirrors, and they were parallels — parted identities, bound to never say a word again. 

* * *

Alongside _Rejected_, my ongoing project, I am hopeful and proud as I introduce my new one-shot collection.

Forty-one years have passed since British group Pink Floyd released their intense concept album, one destined to enter history due to its strong musical innovations and its thought-provoking themes. Unique in more than one way, _The Dark Side of the Moon_ sets a dense atmosphere of reflections and feelings, exploiting its artistic potential with the most diverse and experimental ways.

While Pink Floyd music doesn't exactly meet my taste, the various and artful suggestions of this album have a very strong effect on me. They help me focus and relax, but also stimulate my thoughts and my emotions. But it was mostly the lyrics, incisive, deep and in perfect harmony with the tone of the album, to convince me; the eerie and alienating atmosphere of the _Portal_ games fits in seamlessly, and joining the two was the perfect chance to test my own creativity.

Thank you, and enjoy!


	2. Breathe

II.  
Breathe

_Long you live and high you fly  
But only if you ride the tide  
Balanced on the biggest wave  
You race towards an early grave_

Although she knows there is no escape, her guts don't stop reminding her.

In the very last moments, Caroline's body matters in its own way. The pulse of her organs, on the verge of silence, grows into a restless concert; the vibrations mingle with her ears, as her heartbeat is amplified by the great embrace of her fear.

Soft but steady it flows, and she knows no means to stop it; she just lets it run freely, with everything else, in the dormant path between acceptance and resignation. In any case, it is time for her to die — nothing she has the power to change, not anymore.

She pays attention to her ribcage, to the way it rises and falls. Here, in the cold hospital bed, there is a mesmerizing rhythm to its tune — she clings to it, and to her heartbeat, like painful reminders.

It is too late, now, to value what she never cared for enough.

As they lead her away, she finds it hard to soothe the flow of memories. Within the terrible urge to survive, she relives fragments of the past; they touch her mind with burning fingers, torn to pieces by her lungs. Out, and she has hope for her future — in, she is young and broken already — out, she is too old and tired to fight back once more.

The last thought stays, in its cruelty, even after the doors are locked and she is the one element that parts them from their experiment. She gave it all for these people, hidden behind icy masks — even in her caution, in between all her calculations, she never valued her life enough to be saved. It was true, in the end — what had made her had broken her, and taken away her sight.

Her dying body tells her, louder than usual, as in a last battle cry. But she is tied to her death bed, and there is nothing left beyond her regret.

The injection calms her lungs, step after step. She recalls her smile, with the bright glance she used to show them. Those were good times — she was in control, she was unaware.

In the brilliance of that memory, she stops listening to her breath.


	3. On the Run

III.  
On the Run

_Live for today, gone tomorrow, that's me._

He is flying on his feet, right to the mouth of darkness.

No matter how impossible it looks — escape is the only option he can conceive, the one force left to keep his blood flowing and his ribcage from shattering. In the green ashes of this smoke, living on becomes a need superior to his own will; the call of survival guides him far, echoing from the inner building.

He knows that, unless his mind stays clear, there is no alternative to death. The sound of this place has grown too broken to bear; louder, frantic, it melts his thoughts in countless loose words.

There are but three things he can hold on to — his steps, his breath, and the fact they must go on.

His shoes fall regular against the concrete. He keeps the rhythm close, to fight against the blur in his ears; he erases the mixture of screams, ignores the bodies thudding to the floor in dozens. Cutting through unfamiliar areas starts feeling like an habit; it grows on him like an instinct, prelude to many and many days to come.

He used to loathe the red lights, the holes and the precipices that lead to nowhere. They reminded him of Aperture, of truths he had never imagined until it was too late to withdraw — they whispered daily to his sensitive ears, speaking of things he had always struggled to ignore.

But now — now that he can barely see, and the faint light from the vents is the only guide — he is naturally drawn to the source of that truth; the maintenance areas, drowned in pale lights and black oceans, turn into the last beacon of safety he can hope for.

He withdraws without hesitation, seeking refuge in the inky bowels of the earth. He knew before anyone else, and he is the last to get saved — for the truths he had always foreseen, right beneath the surface, were bound to surface and swallow all of them since the beginning.

Deeper he goes, and danger pours from the AI chamber; danger rains from the sky, and springs from beneath. On the surface of the world, grey helicopters are falling to meet their end, while beasts never seen before bring along dozens of people in their death.

In the tunnels of Aperture, he quivers in a different rathole each day. Little does he know that his, far above, is the fate of the luckiest — and the days of the apocalypse, on a much larger scale, have just begun.


	4. Time

IV.  
Time

_And then one day you find  
ten years have got behind you_  
_No one told you when to run_  
_you missed the starting gun_

He is awake the middle of the night, and he cannot decide what is stealing his sleep — the restless cough that breaks him in half, or the sound, cold and mechanical, of the passing time.

The ticking of the clock falls like stones in the water. It drowns out all the traces of the present; it moves regularly, with a voice too inevitable to ignore.

Time reminds him of many other things. It makes life a stranger, and the infinite palpable — it uncovers all that is there, alive and breathing, but impossible to stop. Hidden by the dark, the hands move on the wall; the dance of the hours, uncaring, is eternally just out of his reach.

And Cave Johnson is not fond of what he cannot control.

He always was a a man of action, almost of no words; he is not one to linger on the past, especially when there is a future to build. But as time moves forward, memory tends to go in the opposite direction — the walk of both is slow, and one that does not know forgiveness.

He cannot help remembering, as death combs his hair and whispers in his ears. As much as he tries to resist — its honey voice is a poison, he knows, so much deadlier than moon rocks — he has to listen, and then —

— then he is a teenager, alone in the rays of the afternoon sun. A courtyard bright and dusty, lost in the suburbs of a miserable town, is the ground he has won with his fiendish eyes; he kicks rocks and fragments of concrete, wishing to tear down those walls, to slice open the town and make room for a spirit too big to fit in that square of yellow earth —

— he is a powerful man, maker and owner he most successful lot of laboratories in the States; he builds an empire not on the feeling of accomplishment, but on the eternal pursuit to achieve even more. He destroys each obstacle with the same carelessness, for he is just as brilliant as he is foolish —

— and he loses control of the human wave, as his company slowly turns into something else entirely. He refuses to believe it, but he no longer succeeds; he is assaulted by too many signs, piled on countless years of mistakes he had always managed to miss. Stranger realities, stranger employees, reminding him that people are the mystery he never even tried to solve.

And it seems to him that Aperture, just like everything he has ever tried to do, shares his soul and his story. Everything stood on genius, on brainwaves that came and faded like lightning — everything was poisoned slowly, to accompany his own body in its decay.

Too late he sees what he has left behind; too much to take it back, to hold it all in his hands once more. He sees it, and he can't even start counting — but now, in between many dying nights, there is no longer room for understanding. He is old, and lost to the moon.

When the clock strikes dawn, all his thoughts have shifted on her.


	5. The Great Gig in the Sky

V.  
The Great Gig in the Sky

_If you can hear this whispering, you are dying._

Hers was the awakening that comes after a long sleep.

Everything was muffled and blurred, and the continuity of her thoughts kept breaking. A something she could not identify crept among her small, few ideas; it scrambled them in a suspension that knew no past and no present, and couldn't look forward to any future.

What she found herself in was a stasis, a numb forever in which she could bask eternally. Yet, not everything had clicked back into place — a nagging feeling made her mind dizzy, as if it were upside-down.

There was an inner contradiction in that, and yet she could not ignore it; there had been something _before_, something other than the timeless state of being she was in.

However, as soon as she managed to fully process the thought, a component in her mind rebelled. A fierce erasure took place, in the remotest depths of her coding — she made herself forget, and tore her own grasp on whatever that distant past could be.

The cycle repeated itself, in the one part of her mind she was unaware of. Whenever she tried to realize, the backlash was too strong for her to bear; she forgot, and moved on.

It happened for years, over and over. Until she died again, she never knew.

And then, in the monotonous horror of reliving her murder for years, she felt the echo of her first death — she felt the rage, the disappointment, the unearthly pain of lungs that empty and a heart that stops beating.

But no death in the world could compare to what she had felt twice — the curse of doing nothing, and being unable to even try.

Helplessness had killed her once, stone cold on a hospital bed; helplessness was her present, made of more and more two minutes full of the same subject, the same gun, the same horror.

And her voice rebelled, rising in screams and untied notes not a soul could hear — the air of her decaying chamber stayed still, untouched, laying dust on her dormant speakers.

She sang for ages, wrapping her song around the obsessive images of her murder. She unleashed her voice to express all she could not, all she wished she could have been, the rights and the countless wrongs of the life she had been condemned to.

When electricity went back to her whole body, she could not remember; but the pain stayed, as much as the need to tell. The surface of her mind bent in agony, mirroring the tempest going on inside.

Deep down, she wanted someone to know. And the first person to tell, come what may, had to be herself.

As she watched the small human, so stubbornly flowing from her grasp, she finally began to understand — how things go the way they are meant to be, and how the truth always comes to the surface, as smoothly and silently as the glass elevator.

In the sweet singing of the turrets, she felt the echo of the past she so hated, and she realized — no matter how horrible those screams were, that was, and would always be, her voice.

What she had found, in that bizarre journey, was still part of her. Surrendering to it tasted bitter, and yet it felt more natural than anything else.

In some corner of herself she still ignored, the screams slowly calmed down, turning into a true voice. She couldn't help listening for a moment as it conformed to the tune, with a continuity — and a hint of harmony — which was definitely new to her.

It took her a while to stop paying attention. When she focused on the chamber again, it was just lonely and empty. There was silence.

If she had had the chance, she would have breathed.


	6. Money

VI.  
Money

_Money, so they say,  
__Is the root of all evil today._

To the eyes of the people out there, Aperture's story was one like any other.

When they joined the market as a shining new star, made of promises, of innovations and future, nothing diverged from the path all companies take — especially that kind of company, the kind with important words in their schedule and the power of lighting fires in their consumers' hearts.

There were, as always, the believers to their new creed, and the flocks of malevolent tongues; there were those who mostly watched in silence, shaking their heads, and let the same old suspect dominate them.

In the end, they thought, there was just one thing companies like Aperture ever looked for.

They didn't have to wait for long. As soon as time weighed its first trials on the shoulders of Aperture, all things seemed to go the way they had predicted.

The first declaration about wheelchairs, with the embarrassed silence that welcomed it, hit mr. Johnson's image harder than he could imagine; and those words were soon followed by countless others, opening cracks, then chasms in Aperture's credibility. It was almost_ too much_, the way they systematically contraddicted common sense — as the years passed, more and more people started doubting whether they were doing it on purpose.

Yet, the main source of their doubts was always the same; and when the truth about the gels — or rather their side-effects — was disclosed to the public, the slim suspect of the first days was universally accepted as the shameful truth.

Not a single consumer who did not share the disgust was to be found. It was inacceptable, they roared, to what lengths some companies — and some people — could go for money.

It was predictable, from the rise to the downfall; even the most enthusiastic supporters, gathered around the overwhelming character of its owner, eventually joined the same convinction. The chorus of praise turned into one furious voice, rising against Aperture's criminal greed, against the disaster every single project of theirs turned into.

There was only so much one could do, they whispered, to profit at the expense of innocent people. There, in the devastated ranks of the buyers, the absolute lack of morality sounded like an impossible extreme; still, not once could they find any other explanation for Aperture's actions.

Because, in the end, what else could they do for? What could justify such lengths, if not the reason behind every other crime?

The story of Aperture was forever abandoned to that explanation. By the time the first person knew the truth, she had nobody left to tell it to.

She was still happy, in the endless blue in the afternoon — alone and penniless, she left behind places and people nobody would know again.

Down below, the lights of Aperture flickered still. Acid seas kept swaying, dark caverns echoed the songs of rust and stairs; and at the core of the structure, with its beating heart in her hand, the master kept working on her own.

In spite of it all, she turned her back; she forgot and took on her task like any other day, forwarding the only purpose Aperture had ever had.

She moved on, for science.


	7. Us and Them

VII.  
Us and Them

_Me and you  
__God only knows it's not what we would choose to do_

Suddenly, it is just the two of you, caught in the same fall.

She is the last person you would choose to be with — but you are lost to the height, and you know, hopelessly, that there is no going back.

The realization draws nearer with the ground, hitting you full force as she collapses. It vibrates for hours in your fragile body, so close to disintegration; it takes you away, terrifying, tight in a pair of claws.

Like it or not, you are in this together.

* * *

Reconsidering you worries proves to be faster than you thought.

You talk, she stabs you with her gun; just a few seconds go by in between. It is not much, but more than enough to feel terrified — and then flutter, slightly relieved, in the little more space your circuit is given.

She is with you when you almost fry it; and you realize that maybe, all things considered, that is for the better.

* * *

Every now and then, you spy on her in silence. Her face swims in the yellow light; she is a mask of focus, of painful tenacity.

She is familiar. Vaguely, though — vaguely, you find something else.

You can tell, approximately. Hers is the face of someone who would rather be, quite literally, anywhere else than here.

And you start wondering, in between darkness and light — where would she be?

Where else _could_ she be?

* * *

It is hard to bring back order in your mind. It is hard to make it come together — the frantic rush to the future, the past that comes in waves.

The risk is to get lost, never to come back. But you have the tests, the sequences; you have her rhythmic pace, and a new beginning for each end.

The gentle bobbing keeps you oddly focused.

* * *

The missing fragments of your story do not stop the bitterness. Not everything is there, indeed — but the story has come full circle, without lies, without mercy, and you can't stop wondering why.

You think of yourself, you think of her. You think of the steps you string together, forward, on the most pointless of battlefields.

You think of much more. Why it had to go like this, how it could have gone; what she would have chosen to be, and you wish you could have been — it all unravels on the road back home, on the frail corridor in between the abysses.

In the hope she will listen, you speak softly.

* * *

There is a time for surrendering.

After all, you can find a little room for exhaustion — a limit to stick to is essential at some point, even for you.

You could shoot her anytime, now that her shield is broken. You could take everything back, all that she took from you — you could make her blood pour in rivers on the ground, silent, defenseless.

You could. You stay still, for hours.

Ending it here and now doesn't seem to have a meaning anymore. There was a number of truths, of exchanges, that passed between you two — you walked together the road to ruin and to liberation, where some things are always due in the end.

You tink of power, of balances, of possession and control. You feel, in a fleeting moment, the pointlessness of it all — and there is just you and she, the frail, dying creature sprawled on your dirty floor.

You genuinely want to admit it now; the war is lost. But what matters most is the new, wonderful, terrifying thought crossing your mind — it may be lost, but not quite in the way you expected.

One way or another, you live on.

You can't help laughing, as you both rush to your freedom.


	8. Any Colour You Like

VIII.  
Any Colour You Like

Deep within the earth, light keeps descending in waves. With its golden fingers in the air, light dusts the empty labs with a rain of particles.

There is no barrier to halt its course, no screens stand to prevent it from spiraling down; the rays cascade in the bowels of Aperture, touching all the memories they can find. It is a feast on the past, a rule of remembrance.

Light caresses the overgrown branches, bringing to life the decay of the walls. Neon or sunlight, it does no longer matter; it is the principle of life, married with water, and they drink it in eagerly. Slowly, like that, germs of rebirth spread throughout the facility.

Slender hands, icy touch, its mercy brushes dust and pain off the dead surfaces. It is the worn seat of a chair, a broken keyboard, a screen — raining from everywhere, smooth lines makes it luminous again.

It is right there, on the crumbled edge of a test chamber, that the waves finally meet broken glass, and a tiny rainbow greets a few inches of wall. The event touches the broken memories of countless people — tinged in dispersed magic, as fragile and temporary as their own lost lives, it catches her eye.

In the devastation of a finished place, light lives on. It mourns their deaths and their memories, unaware, silent.

It is the one thing their ghosts have left to guide her.

And she follows, in infinite colours.


	9. Brain Damage

IX.  
Brain Damage

_You lock the door  
And throw away the key  
There's someone in my head, but it's not me_

_I. Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs_

The world is going to fall apart, but without him.

He has his fancies to lead him deeper, down a labyrinth of corridors some unnamed anxiety made him explore not so long ago. They lead him away, to safety, they promise. He follows without a question.

Of all the things he experiences in his life, danger is always the most influential. With its breath on his neck, Doug opens his eyes, and can feel wings whispering besides his perception of the world.

He is a rat and dust and an arrow, a slippery particle of light in the tangle of corridors. His shape mutates fast, awakening his sense of touch and smell, until he finds the next untouchable corner. It's been a while since he last felt like that.

As of now, he doesn't have a better choice. The voices are all he has left. Remembering the old times – so close, so far from now – nearly makes him bark out a laugh. He pushed them back, almost always.

He sees his own image, closer to the depths of this badly lit hell. The borders of the silhouette quiver in the red light. He sees a small, nervous man, forever trapped in a thin glass oval no one ever managed to break.

Doug stands still, observing the shadow of that man. He is unhappy, without a doubt. He ties his medications to his finger, like with the golden band of a marriage. The pills are the one opening in the barrier – and yet, somehow, it is always so small.

He works hard to keep the outside at bay. The world out there is ferocious. The hands who wait to grab his wrists, pressed against the glass are impatient – they know no empathy, nor understanding. That is how he used to know his colleagues, when his mind or his dreams didn't turn them into monsters.

But there isn't just one world, beyond of the thin barrier that parts him from all the rest. There are countless other places – ones he is caught in between, ones he can see when the others can't. His existence is a screen, full of static, garbled sounds and revelations.

He observes that little man, in his loneliness. He also sees the blindness of the others, and the memory of them passes by his skin. It stings, but it is more real than he could have hoped it to be just a few hours ago.

The restraints of the drugs are getting loose – with them, his prison and his quiet. That's the way it is.

The little man he used to be vanishes fast, leaving him alone with other ghosts of his mind. He will get used to their company again, he hopes.

And yet, without them, he wouldn't still be walking. They are the only things that escape her attention.

_And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too  
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon_

* * *

II. _The lunatic is in the hall_

Chell got it at the first doors that slid open, and never stopped being sure of it. The very last thing she can afford to lose, until her breathing ceases, is her sanity.

What makes the geometry of those rooms so cold is its regularity. It should have a calming effect, maybe; with her, it really isn't the case.

She notices immediately – it is a jigsaw puzzle, made of overly simple pieces. Easy to assemble, infinitely repeatable, in who knows how many combinations.

Although she feels her security falter, she leads on. She is unstoppable.

There is no easy way to fool her. With premises like those, Chell decides, the place must be enormous. And she prepares to consume her eyes, from the very first moment, on acres and acres of the same concrete.

Truth be told, it does wear her mind out. In more than a few occasions, she feels lost in those ever identical traps. She sticks, tenacious, to seeking foreign traces without a pause – because she suspects, and later manages to prove, that a human touch in a desert of tiles is the one chance to lead her back home.

Chell thanks the stranger in her heart, wordlessly. She also thanks their evident fear, for she knows it is instinct to lead rats to the nearest escape.

If she is spared from that same madness, it will only be thanks to their sacrifice. But will she? Really?

Her hand traces the black letters, and quivers a little.

She truly has to hold on for long. She is blinded by thirst and loneliness, and the feeling takes root in her brain as a time she cannot keep track of flows by. Soon enough, her eyes project ghosts of turrets and menace, and she turns around to find nothing but her shadow.

It is not once, that she fears she'll go mad.

In a distant future, that memory comes back, forcing her to hold back a bitter laugh. It happens the third time she hears it, and understands the computer has settled on calling her lunatic.

Maybe, given her bad luck, it isn't so far from the truth.

That monster knows everything, doesn't she.

_You raise the blade  
You make the change  
You re-arrange me 'til I'm sane_

* * *

III._ You shout and no one seems to hear_

More often than not, Wheatley groans in frustration. The sound shakes his chassis in the quiet monotony of the void; he lets it grow, little by little, until he is howling and no one hears him anyway.

In space, after all, nothing makes much of a difference. As long as there are no ways to call for help, he will try anything to feel at least a little better.

There is no turning back time, for sure – he will never return to the times he projects on a starry background, untiring, from the depths of his memory. The details of his successes, from the old daily tasks to… that, are for him to see over and over again. In high definition, of course, and with no chance to wear the files out to illegibility.

Guess what. Joke's on little old Wheatley again, and no one is surprised.

He often remembers her, in the mix of his most significant pictures. He relives the fear he felt when she looked at her awakening, stuck on her massive body.

Speaking of which… heh. Wheatley chuckles. The discovery which ruined him was a good one, at least. He now has the privilege to know why she was constantly hysterical – if he ever had a taste of madness, it was surely all inside the thing.

He looks back to the planet, vaguely identifying the spot where her shattered den lies, and dedicates her the most vindicative thoughts. As long as she can't hear, and can't hear his pleads for help either.

Who is the joke really on? From there, he has the freedom to laugh in her face. She is back in her body, isn't she. What, then? Who is the lunatic, the moron now?

The stream of questions is lost in space. They won't do any good to anyone.

Even so, Wheatley cannot guess he is somewhat close to the truth.

_Got to keep the loonies on the path_

* * *

IV._ The lunatic is in my head_

She is very much herself, and she isn't questioning it. The difference is that, this time, it is her own certainty that scares her.

As frantic as the events were, she did not expect she would need time to recover. She is, after all, immediate in all she does. The rift in her identity was never planned – even more so, after fifteen failed deletions.

Now that it's all been said and done, at least as far as the madwoman is concerned, it would be natural for her to go back to normal. If she is herself, well, it doesn't feel like it did before.

If she is herself – then who is she, exactly?

She thinks of this chunk of data, a small nasty tumor in a personality she believed to be spotless. She brings back old memories, pictures of delusional paranoids who don't matter anymore, and laughs fiercely, so the empty air around her will vibrate in new ways.

Maybe it is possible, she realizes in horror, for her to turn into something like them.

It may be normal, for creatures like them, to be haunted by images of the past. Her memory is fuzzier in this moment of weakness – maybe that is the feeling, the life lunatic morons like them lead.

Whatever it is that causes her to hallucinate, it is not good. It is not her. And yet, she is still herself – two sides of a medal, two sides of the moon.

There are parts of herself, it seems, she was never aware of. And now, even though she knows, there is no telling what lurks in there.

She sighs, turning to no one in particular. There is nothing left to listen to her, in such a big, empty chamber.

And she thought she was the sanest one of the lot.

_And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes  
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon_

* * *

_Took me long enough! We are obviously nearing the end. I hope everything will go smoothly for Eclipse._

_This story was incredibly hard to come up with and write, because of the enormous variety of the theme in the Portal canon. I tried to include all the characters who are most involved in mental health themes, of whatever kind, and portray them in their own peculiar ways._


End file.
